I KNEW you'd come back to your roots!!!!! Happy, happy, HAPPY! I "get" night walks......I only have 15 so far....but I have 39 peppers...(insert eye-roll)

It only happened because of the nice person who enticed me, but I sure am grateful!

Yay! Congrats to you both on all the baby veggies. Seedmama, Never say never. The day may come again when you'll have a truly excessive number of tomato plants in the ground. My garden started getting bigger every year after our son reached the upper grades in high school and could drive himself to all his own activities. I used my new spare time to continually break more ground and plant more plants. It only escalated after he went off to college. Sixteen plants is a nice number too as it is enough plants that you'll have tons of tomatoes to enjoy but not so many that you'll feel like you should skip sleeping so you can stay up all night canning tomatoes.

Paula, I know that the night walk and counting is fun, but I have too many plants so I don't count. I do like to look at them in the evening to see how they're looking and always come into the house in a good mood because I've seen lots of little baby tomatoes. Yesterday I noticed quite a few fused blossoms (aka megablooms) so we're likely to get some big ugly fruit from some of the plants.

Dawn

Seedmama, I haven't seen you in years......and it always seems to be for Scout training. Don't they have any other volunteers down there. LOL I think I know the answer to that.

We miss you Seedmama, but you only have a few precious years with those kiddos...we'll (most likely!) still be here when you are waving good bye as they are headed to college!

Dawn, there was a time when I couldn't imagine a smaller garden, let alone none at all. For as long as I have the job I am so grateful for, there will be no time for a larger garden. I work 90+ hours a week. It's tough, but not nearly as tough as not having a job. Meanwhile I sneak in late night reads here at the forum, and enjoy what ya'll are doing!

SGM, I only wish my biggest commitment was Scouts, but again it's the job. I have delegated all my volunteer duties elsewhere. Seedpapa is Den Leader to Sprout 2, who was but 2 months old when you and I first met. I have no responsibilities at Troop, and have passed on all my District and Council duties. I still recruit youth and adults, and answer the phone for those with questions, but otherwise, I'm out. The event next weekend is a family camp for Sprout 2, and I'm glad I can sneak away, because I often cannot.

Lisa, you are so right! And I treasure the moments, because I have so few. I haven't forgotten our great group here, and one day the schedule will work out where I'll be back at the fling. I had it pencilled in this year, and had even purchased groceries and made cascarones, when I realized the camping conflict, boo hoo!

Meanwhile, I'm hoping I have hermit tomatoes, the kind that like to be left alone!

Seedmama, I know you must miss your garden terribly and we all miss you, but I know that someday you'll have time to have a bigger garden once again. You know, the years roll by and kids grow up and retirement looms somewhere down that long road. You'll see......it gets here faster than you'd think. Tim's sister, who isn't that much older than TIm and I, just took a golden parachute early retirement package, and suddenly we are feeling really old. How can one of our siblings be retired already? After roughly 35 years in the same career (and one she really loved and enjoyed), she's entering a new phase of her life and I think she'll have time now to do lots of new things there just wasn't time for when her kids were growing up and she worked full-time.

I know we all think of you often and miss you and it warms my heart to know you sneak in a little reading here and there. Ninety hours a week blows my mind. Be sure you take care of yourself. That's a heavy workload.

Scouting must miss you terribly, but you served the program extremely well when you had time and no one I know is able to volunteer endlessly----only when there is time available, and you have no spare time right now. Enjoy the campout with Sprout #2. How is it possible he is so old already? Surely we are not aging that quickly too!

Hermit tomatoes are the best type. They sit there quietly...mediating and living a very zen existence. Then, one day, the 90-hour-a-week-working-woman/wife/mother/absentee gardener slips into the garden and finds them all ripe and juicy just waiting to bring her great joy. THAT is the whole reason why hermit tomatoes exist. They are my favorite kind---the ones you stumble across and say "Really? Ripe already? I had no idea!" It is such a joyful thing to discover they've been out there growing and maturing and doing their thing while you and your family were busy doing your thing. They were just waiting to be discovered! My friend who grows hermit tomatoes has great success. She rototills, plants and waters, and then forgets about them. The ground cracks, the weeds grow, and the tomato plants grow and produce like mad. All she does is wander through the 6' high Johnson grass to pick her tomatoes. She gets great yields and it fits her no-time-to-spare life. Someone should write a book about no-work gardening. (Well, Ruth Stout already wrote that book....but maybe a book on growing hermit tomatoes.)

Dawn